Published: 2020 | Alexander Sahn Abstract High housing prices drive inequality, reduce growth, and increase racial segregation. Scholars have identified laws restricting the use of land, particularly for dense multi-family housing, as a primary cause of housing unaffordability. What explains…
The What, Where, and When of Place-Based Housing Policy’s Neighborhood Effects
Published: 2017 | Keri-Nicole Dillman, Ann Verrilli, Keren Horn Abstract Ever-scarce affordable housing production resources, in addition to their primary function of providing housing for those in need, are increasingly enlisted for the dual goals of strengthening distressed communities and…
Consumer-Lending Discrimination in the FinTech Era
Published: 2019 | Robert Bartlett, Adair Morse, Richard Stanton, Nancy Wallace Abstract Under U.S. fair-lending law, lenders can discriminate against minorities only for creditworthiness. Using an identification under this rule, afforded by the GSEs’ pricing of mortgage credit risk, we…
Racial Rent Differences in U.S. Housing Markets
Published: 2018 | Dirk W. Early, Paul E. Carrillo, Edgar O. Olsen Abstract This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets…
Warding Off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, and NIMBYs
Published: 2020 | Evan Mast | The Center for Growth and Opportunity Abstract Local control of land-use regulation creates a not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) problem that can suppress housing construction, contributing to rising prices and potentially slowing economic growth. I study how…
Building Black Homeownership Bridges: A Five-Point Framework for Reducing the Racial Homeownership Gap
Published: 2019 | Alanna McCargo, Jung Hyun Choi, and Edward Golding | Urban Institute Abstract Homeownership is an important wealth-building source and a foundation for economic stability. Owning a home can provide a stable place to live and remove significant…
To Understand a City’s Pace of Gentrification, Look at Its Housing Supply
Published: 2020 | Laurie Goodman, Ellen Seidman, Jun Zhu | Urban Institute Abstract Gentrification is a hotly debated subject, with conversations centering around what happens to neighborhoods’ income and racial mix as new buyers move in and how that affects…
Urban Growth and its Aggregate Implications
Published: 2019 | Gilles Duranton, Diego Puga | Public Economics Abstract We develop an urban growth model where human capital spillovers foster entrepreneurship and learning in heterogenous cities. Incumbent residents limit city expansion through planning regulations so that commuting and…
NLC Preemption Report
Published: 2017 | National League of Cities Abstract Preemption is the use of state law to nullify a municipal ordinance or authority. Proponents of preemption argue that it equalizes laws across the state, preventing individuals and firms from navigating a…
The Rare Occurrence of Mortgages Over $500,000
Published: 2017 | NLIHC Abstract The report reveals that only 5% of the mortgages obtained between 2013 to 2015 in the U.S. were larger than $500,000 and that lowering the mortgage interest deduction (MID) cap to $500,000 would have no…